Wuthering Heights Character Analysis

The culture of set societal rules and conventions urges Catherine to be with Edgar, compelling her to be ‘the greatest woman of the neighbourhood’ due to them being relatively firm in their gentry’s status. This suggests the importance of her social status against the nature of her love for Heathcliff stating, ‘we would be beggars’, through employing the word ‘beggars’ the reader crafts the idea of her belief that she won’t survive without her status. Catherine admits ‘It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him’ Thus implying a swelling sense of her vanity and pride; enough to enjoy the position she gains from being married to Edgar despite her admiration for Heathcliff, being ‘more than (herself) than (she is)’and

In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Heathcliff’s strong love for Catherine guides his transformation as a character. While Heathcliff enters the story as an innocent child, the abuse he receives at a young age and his heartbreak at Catherine’s choice to marry Edgar Linton bring about a change within him. Heathcliff’s adulthood is consequently marked by jealousy and greed due to his separation from Catherine, along with manipulation and a deep desire to seek revenge on Edgar. Although Heathcliff uses deceit and manipulation to his advantage throughout the novel, he is never entirely content in his current situation. As Heathcliff attempts to revenge Edgar Linton, he does not gain true fulfillment. Throughout Wuthering Heights, Brontë uses Heathcliff’s vengeful actions to convey the message that manipulative and revenge-seeking behaviors will not bring a person satisfaction.

At the center of Wuthering Heights lies a tragic vision of decay and detachment which depends completely on the severances Emily Bronte has created between characters, estates, and social statuses. Bronte reveals societal flaws that had never before been recognized during her time and creates a raw vision of Victorian life; one in which the differences between characters and their social standings outweigh their true beliefs and desires when it comes to who they choose to be, who they choose to surround themselves with, and how they choose to treat those around them. In its most distinct form, Wuthering Heights is a love story that chronicles the lives of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, regardless of the distance between them. It is

Wuthering Heights is a novel which deviates from the standard of Victorian literature. The novels of the Victorian Era were often works of social criticism. They generally had a moral purpose and promoted ideals of love and brotherhood. Wuthering Heights is more of a Victorian Gothic novel; it contains passion, violence, and supernatural elements (Mitchell 119). The world of Wuthering Heights seems to be a world without morals. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë does not idealize love; she presents it realistically, with all its faults and merits. She shows that love is a powerful force which can be destructive or redemptive. Heathcliff has an all-consuming passion for Catherine. When she chooses to marry Edgar, his spurned love turns into a

Heathcliff cried vehemently, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" Emily Brontë distorts many common elements in Wuthering Heights   to enhance the quality of her book. One of the distortions is Heathcliff's undying love for Catherine Earnshaw. Also, Brontë perverts the vindictive hatred that fills and runs Heathcliff's life after he loses Catherine. Finally, she prolongs death, making it even more distressing and insufferable.

“We love with a love that was more than love” stated by a famous poet by the name of Edgar Allen Poe. True love can appear deeper than the surface. Repeatedly humans confide in their brain on who they are “infatuated” and make decisions based upon that. Emily Bronte depicts this well in her outstanding novel “Wuthering Heights.” In the story, two characters by the name of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw are constantly yearning for each throughout the novel but under certain circumstances can be wed together. As an adopted child, Heathcliff comes into the family and attaches himself to Catherine. However, another character by the name of Edgar Linton, similarly loves Catherine but is the complete contrast of Heathcliff. Coming from a well-off family, Linton is almost a picture perfect of what society wants in a male being wealthy, respectful, and highly intelligent. On the other hand, Heathcliff is a poor, uncivilized, and simple-minded child. Bronte indicates in her narrative in a “what-if” situation based on the love between them both. Creating scenario, she creates a blurry line in between wrong and right choice for love. Nonetheless, “logical choice” is not always the correct choice nor is it a clear-cut choice. The author asks a question of “If it is a choice between the rational and true love, which do you chose?” Because of this, Bronte makes readers

Before Heathcliff gained his wealth, Catherine told Ellen that “it would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am” (Brontё 69). Catherine uses Edgar’s marriage proposal to stay comfortable in a lifestyle like the one she grew up in, never expecting Heathcliff to gain considerable wealth. When Heathcliff returned to Wuthering Heights, Catherine’s resentment towards her new marriage to Edgar and continuation of her romance with Heathcliff demonstrates the theme of love causing hate. Even though Catherine appears pernicious through her bullying of Edgar, Catherine’s missed opportunity to marry Heathcliff after he attained wealth rouses sympathy for the forbidden

Like Heathcliff, she was also a wild spirit, intrinsically inclined toward Wuthering Heights, yet capable of adapting to high-society living. However, she could not continue to ignore her inherent affinity for both Heathcliff and the natural world. Only as she approached death did she finally admit that she “[didn’t] want…Edgar” or Thrushcross Grange to be her home (Brontë 127). Catherine’s frantic love for Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights manifested as the “brain fever” that led to her death, symbolizing the conflict between her effort to fit into society and her longing for a life free of constraints with Heathcliff (Brontë 132). Despite his newfound suffering, Heathcliff continues to love Catherine, even after her

This begins with his childhood. As the character Nellie details what life was like for the children of Wuthering Heights, we quickly understand that Heathcliff especially lived as a target for abuse. This abuse namely came from Hindley Earnshaw, who viewed Heathcliff as a usurper of his father’s affections, and grew jealous of the way Mr. Earnshaw doted on the boy. In return, Heathcliff was subjected to frequent beatings and harsh treatment, all of which he took without complaint. His only true friend at the house was wild child Catherine Earnshaw- later Catherine Linton- who granted him a reprieve from Hindley’s cruelty, and showed him love. By showing the reader this kind of brutality, we understand the potency of Heathcliff’s hatred toward Hindley, and subsequently his urge to seek retribution in adulthood. In addition, the author establishes this strong connection with Catherine early on so the reader understands Heathcliff’s

(Bronte) Catherine’s treatment contrasts the way Mr. Lockwood was greeted at Wuthering Heights. It is evident that the two manors are as different as the people in them. A transformation is made in Catherine’s appearance and character when she marries Edgar and moves over to Grange where she experiences life being spoiled and pampered as she pleases. When she is welcomed back to the Heights Heathcliff greets her and in return is insulted when she laughs to find him “dirty” (55) Evidently, this supports that her transformation is not only physical but also spiritual for her comparison between them two.

In Emily's Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights, she asserts that love, while it is usually described as unchanging and everlasting, has to come from a place of understanding and a willingness to change, otherwise it becomes destructive and toxic. The story begins when Mr. Lockwood asks Nelly, a maid who worked at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, to tell him the story of Heathcliff, the landowner. She tells him that Mr. Earnshaw, the landowner before Heathcliff, brought Heathcliff into his home, where Mr. Earnshaw’s son, Hindley, bullied him, and Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine, grew closer to him. Catherine spent a few weeks at Thrushcross Grange where she met the Linton family, became a proper young lady, and married Edgar Linton.

As represented in Catherine Earnshaw’s early characterization, the social and cultural ideals of the time period are heavily reinforced through Catherine’s defiant individualism and love for the initially lowly Heathcliff, which contrasts with the civility and propriety of the people around her. Despite being set solely in the Yorkshire Moors in England, the delicate social hierarchy of class is clearly seen in the residents of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, in which Wuthering Heights lacks the class, refinement, and civilization of the latter. Despite the era’s social expectations of women as submissive and demure individuals expected to marry into a wealthy family, Catherine rejects these very standards through her fierce love for Heathcliff

Catherine and HeathCliff’s intimacy provided the base for the main conflict. Her marriage with Edger was more of a contract that provided her with the facilitations rather than satisfactions of matrimonial life. Which ultimately secured her the position among great ladies. If she would have married HeathCliff than her material gains would have been less or nothing. Her marriage stamped the class difference and Catherine as Victorian.

The confinement that characters within the texts experience can be translated into modern values based on equality. In the novel, Catherine Earnshaw is constantly controlled by the circumstances that control her; she’s ruled by her father and Hindley throughout her childhood, restricted by her injury at Thrushcross Grange, and forced to marry Edgar because of her isolation from the rest of the world. Even in her passionate relationship with Heathcliff, which reflects the spontaneous, exciting nature of the Romantic period, Heathcliff

“If wellness is this what in hell's name is sickness?” American singer Amanda Palmer captures what it means to reside in both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange in her hit song, “Runs in the Family”. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights puts the ‘dysfunction’ in ‘dysfunctional families’ by using illness to demonstrate family dynamics. In the narrative, the affliction of mental illness is spread to almost all characters as they enter the household of Wuthering Heights, while residents at Thrushcross Grange are afflicted with physical illness, causing the ultimate upheaval of both households.